Southern California sees strongest regional migration

The chapel entrance, left, and courtyard outside is one of the more beautiful spots at The Mission Inn in Riverside, Calif.
CHAS METIVIER
AP

The chapel entrance, left, and courtyard outside is one of the more beautiful spots at The Mission Inn in Riverside, Calif.
CHAS METIVIER
AP

The nation’s most powerful internal migration flow in recent years has been from Los Angeles and Orange counties into two “Inland Empire” counties to the east, a new Census Bureau report indicates.

That eastward stream of migration into Riverside and San Bernardino counties during the 2009-2013 period helped the region become the state’s leader in population growth. Its population rose by 1 million between 2000 and 2010, nearly a third of all California growth during the decade, and has since increased by another 200,000.

“Nine of the top 10 metro migration flows were moves to nearby metro areas, with the largest flow of about 90,000 moving from the Los Angeles metro to the Riverside metro area,” Kin Koerber, a Census Bureau demographer, said in an analysis accompanying the data release.

The eastward shift was mitigated somewhat by 54,711 people who moved westward from Riverside and San Bernardino to the Los Angeles-Orange County region during the four-year period, the Census Bureau calculated, based on its American Community Survey.

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The data also showed a strong flow of migration from Los Angeles County to Orange County during the period and indicated that a large number of those moving to Riverside and San Bernardino were Latinos.